All She Wanted To Do
by Nora541
Summary: Anna, while lost in her own thoughts of the land of the Wild Things, finds Alexander sitting alone after a day of roughhousing. Can she put aside her own misgivings to tell the neglected creature what he needs to hear? Loosely based on the movie scene.


**Hey everyone, this is my first story. Just a little oneshot very loosely based on my favorite scence from Where the Wild Things Are: when Max talks to Alexander after the dirt clod fight. In my opinion, Max could (and should) have handled the situation much better than he did. My character is a girl, and intended to be older than Max, even though her age is unstated. It doesn't stay true to the plot of the movie, fair warning.**

**Reviews would be tremendously appreciated :)**

**I do not own Where The Wild Things are (book or movie) and therefore none of the rights. The only thing I own is my own character.**

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**All she wanted to do was to make them happy. To be a source of comfort for them, and to help them pull their scattered lives back together, but somehow it hadn't worked. Now she felt like the best thing she could do for them was to leave. It broke her heart, it** **left her feeling listless and useless, as if all this time with them would eventually amount to nothing, if it had ever really amounted to anything at all. She'd leave, and eventually, her presence there would fade into the background, and settle into nothing but a periodic absent minded thought that would be quickly brushed away to make room for the more pressing and insistent matters of the present. Where that would leave her, though, was an entirely different matter. Even though things were falling apart, she couldn't stop thinking about them. She loved them; they had truly become her family. She felt at home there, like she belonged, like she was, for the first time, with people like herself; cherished, welcomed, and wanted. **

**She had been wandering, and found herself walking along the beach, and following her feet to a rocky alcove along the shoreline. She meandered inside, hoping to just stop there for a few moments and think. However, it was not long before she realized that she was not alone. Edging past the entrance to the cave, she saw a smallish figure hunched near the back of the pocket of rock. It was Alexander. Slowly, she approached him, cautious of any possible accusations or all-too-deserving insults but, to her surprise, the only acknowledgement he gave was a sidelong glance over his shoulder before he seemed to fold back in on himself again. His general posture and utterly apathetic attitude made her twinge with sympathy. Swallowing a nervous lump in her throat, she approached the goat creature. As she came closer, he gave no further indication that her presence mattered to him. Gingerly, she sat down on the rock floor beside him, close, but not too close. She heard him sigh.**

**Trying and failing to find something profound or generally apologetic to say, she settled on stating the first thing that came to her mind in order to break the stifling silence that seemed to descend between them.**

"**No one really seems to listen to you much, do they?" she stated in what she hoped was a gentle voice, meant not to insult him or deter him from possibly speaking to her.**

**Alexander laughed once from his nose, a self-loathing, pitiful sound. "You noticed?" he said rhetorically.**

**Anna couldn't find a reply for his simple statement. Fighting to remain calm and passive, she let her eyes roam around the dimly lit little cavern, eventually resting back on Alexander. There, on his right upper arm, the one closest to her, she could see a sizeable area of hair matted down with dried blood. It looked painful, and when she examined his posture further she found that he was indeed favoring that arm. **

**She edged a fraction closer to him, bending her head to look at the wound clearly. "What happened?" she asked, even though she was fairly sure she already knew how it occurred.**

**Alexander cocked his head. His voice was small and it cracked. "When you told them to tackle me," he answered. **

**Anna studied him further then, and wondered why she had not thought of the consequences of the act of which he spoke. It was true. Yesterday it had been so good. The sun was out, there was a crisp breeze coming in from the ocean, and they all felt energetic and alive. Running and playing on the shore turned into playful dodging and tackling. Alexander had been watching from the sidelines, and Nora wanted him to get in on the fun, and so she encouraged some of the others to extend their seemingly harmless roughhousing to include him. Even afterwards, Alexander still didn't seem keen on the impromptu game, so Anna had let him wander off, not wishing to push him, but sad that he didn't want to join in. Now that she realized he had abandoned the game for a legitimate reason, it filled her with guilt and regret.**

"**I'm sorry, Alexander," she said softly, knowing that her token apology would not be enough. He seemed so sad, so neglected and alone. She quickly got up, knowing on instinct that he wouldn't be leaving any time soon. As she quickly walked out to the open air again, she began to tear two strips off the bottom of her stretched out t-shirt. Just as she had completed the task, she reached the small freshwater stream she had discovered the previous day. She knelt down and soaked the two strips in the cool, clear water, got up, and quickly returned to the little inlet.**

**Alexander had heard her coming back, and, startled and incredulous, he stared at her returning figure, which apparently proved opposite to his suspicions that she had left him there by himself. Anna came into the cave and seated herself next to him again. Laying the strips of cloth across her lap, she looked again at his arm. "Can I see?" she asked softly.**

**Alexander haltingly obliged, angling his upper arm in Anna's direction. She took it gently in her hands, feeling the wiry hairs of his coat thread themselves through her fingers. She took one strip of damp cloth and began to tease the dried blood out of both his coat and the wound. She felt his warm breath puffing erratically out of his muzzle, and she could feel his arm trembling slightly. "Alright…it's alright," she murmured low and soft, and she thought she sensed him relax slightly. The process of cleaning the wound was proving to be a tedious one, as she was trying to wash the dried blood away without scrubbing too harshly, while making sure the area was clear at the same time. Soon, the first strip of cloth was too dirty to use any longer, and she placed it on the ground, and picked up the second. Another ten or so minutes passed, and Alexander's arm was starting to look better. The wound itself, while it was the size of Anna's closed fist, was not deep. However, it had bled a lot, and Anna had found herself cleaning sand and grit out of the injury as well.**

**Finally, the sizeable scrape was clean, and the surrounding hair was again white. There were some clean areas of the second cloth left, and it was still pleasantly cool. She pressed it against the wound, as she was sure the cold sensation of it would feel good to him. She soothingly encircled it with both of her hands, applying a small amount of pressure.**

**Alexander heaved a big sigh, and as Anna looked up at him, she found him to have closed his eyes. Patiently waiting for him to reopen them, she stayed still, her hands softly around his upper arm. Eventually, he opened his eyes, fixing them on her own.**

"**Thank you," he said with a note of surprise clearly audible in his voice. Anna offered what degree of a smile she could muster back to him.**

"**I didn't know…" she started. "I just…I just wanted to make everyone happy." **

**Alexander continued to study her face, his large yellow animal eyes curiously tracing her features. "You're not a queen." It was not an accusation. The corners of his wide mouth turned up very slightly. "That's ok. I don't think they really exist anyway." Anna could never explain it, but that simple statement reassured her like no other could have done. She shifted her grasp on his arm, slowly removing the damp piece of cotton. To her relief, the wound had not bled any more. Standing up, she tore yet another piece from her now sadly sacrificed t-shirt. When she was finished, she wound the strip several times around Alexander's arm, ending with a knot, the makeshift bandage keeping the wound clean until it began to heal. Anna then took a step away from Alexander, wordlessly inviting him to stand. As he did so, they both faced the opening of the cave, looking toward the open ocean, with distant white flecks of sea birds wheeling far above the waves. **

**Anna felt the rough warmth of Alexander's coat against the bare skin of her arm as they started to walk side by side to the shoreline. A gentle breeze came in from the ocean, ruffling Anna's hair and Alexander's fur in turn. Anna encircled his waist with one arm as he curled his good arm around her shoulders. **

"**Will we always be friends?" she heard him ask.**

**Anna pressed her face a little further into his warm fur. "Always," she replied.**


End file.
